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46 A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY
CHAPTER V
CONTAINS A GREAT DEAL OF COMPLICATED LOVE-MAKING
THE Misses Macarty were excessively indignant that Mr. Fitch
should have had the audacity to fall in love with their sister;
and poor Caroline's life was not, as may be imagined, made
much the happier by the envy and passion thus excited. Mr.
Fitch's amour was the source of a great deal of pain to her. Her
mother would tauntingly say that, as both were beggars, they could
not do better than marry ; and declared, in the same satirical way,
that she should like nothing better than to sec a large family of
grandchildren about her, to be plagues and burdens upon her, as
her daughter was. The short way would have been, when the
young painter's intentions were manifest, which they pretty speedily
were, to have requested him immediately to quit the house ; or, as
Mr. Gann said, " to give him the sack at once ;" to which measure
the worthy man indignantly avowed that he would have resort.
But his lady would not allow of any such rudeness ; although, for
her part, she professed the strongest scorn and contempt for the
painter. For the painful fact must be stated : Fitch had a short
time previously paid no less a sum than a whole quarter's board
and lodging in advance, at Mrs. Gann's humble request, and he
possessed his landlady's receipt for that sum ; the mention of which
circumstance silenced Gann's objections at once. And indeed, it is
pretty certain that, with all her taunts to her daughter and just
abuse of Fitch's poverty, Mrs. Gann in her heart was not altogether
averse to the match. In the first place, she loved match-making ;
next, she would be glad to be rid of her daughter at any rate ; and,
besides, Fitch's aunt, the auctioneer's wife, was rich, and had no
children; painters, as she had heard, make often a great deal of
money, and Fitch might be a clever one, for aught she knew. So
he was allowed to remain in the house, an undeclared but very
assiduous lover ; and to sigh, and to moan, and make verses and
portraits of his beloved, and build castles in the air as best he
might. Indeed our humble Cinderella was in a very curious position.
She felt a tender passion for the first-floor and was adored by the
second-floor, and had to wait upon both at the summons of the bell